It was 3am in Australia when Art Malone received a call telling him his company Graphinex was set for a A$1.3bn ($860mn) loan as part of a US-driven initiative to develop an alternative to China’s rare earths and critical minerals supply chain.
“I fell out of bed when I heard the number,” said Malone, marvelling at how the graphene company’s fortunes had changed so quickly. At a mining conference this week “I felt like a rock star”, he said.
Companies such as Graphinex, which is developing the world’s third-biggest deposit of graphite, have long been out of favour with investors who wondered if they could ever compete with China, he said.